


I Clung To You Hoping We'd Both Drown

by smolppstitsucker



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung-centric, M/M, Nakamoto Yuta-centric, Recreational Drug Use, Sad Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolppstitsucker/pseuds/smolppstitsucker
Summary: Perhaps things wouldn't have been this intense for Doyoung if Lee Taeyong's name wasn't involved this. For someone as disliked as Doyoung, him getting outed would perhaps have been a chainsaw to his head, but the current situation is probably a chainsaw dipped in acid and covered in glass repeatedly macing his skull. Perhaps, if Lee Taeyong's name hadn't been involved in this, Yuta thinks, then Doyoung would have made it out of this with ugly stares and name calling and statutory homophobia. But Lee Taeyong's involvement makes it a thousand times worse, and now everybody's talking about it.(Or, Doyoung, Yuta, and the shittiest corners of a Catholic School in a small town.)
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	I Clung To You Hoping We'd Both Drown

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, so, this work is a little out of the blue but I have this truckload of highschool trauma and I've no use for it so I'll project it onto Yuta and Doyoung for now [insert cowboy emoji]. 
> 
> I always see that people say highschool isn't dramatic, but I guess it differs? Because me and my two friends really, really, have like a shitton of traumatising memories?
> 
> Anyway, so highschool sad traumatised doyu it is. No one dies, I'll give you that. Because one, I'm not dead yet, and two, I hate sad endings. 
> 
> tw for panic attacks, depression and self harm and everything in general
> 
> cw for vomiting.
> 
> for @doyuberry on twt. Ly, Prez.
> 
> work title from Flatsound's first album.

It all starts, like many things do in high-school, with people running their mouths more than they should when it doesn't involve them and one shitty friend. One day, Kim Doyoung, resident try-hard, principal's favorite, teachers' pet, pretentious son of a bitch, is showing up at 8 am in pristine formal attire to represent the school at some dumb event in the city and the next day everyone's talking about him in a way that he would never want them to, sporting smirks that almost resemble something victorious, looking at him in a way that seems to say _your goody two-shoes days are over, boyo_ , and getting side-eyed by teachers who would have told him he was repulsive if it weren't for the warm wholesome teacher façade they've managed to maintain for the entirety of their careers, masks slipping ever so slightly in moments of wrath unleashed on kids that they have a bone to pick with. 

It's a small-town school with a Catholic founder in a suburban corner of South Korea, and a gay kid isn't everyday news, and Yuta watches people talk about Kim Doyoung like he's some goddamned A-list celebrity, a Kpop idol, performing adept character assassinations like it's stan Twitter's live action remake.

Yuta doesn't know Kim Doyoung, per se. He knows of him, of course, everyone does. He's probably one of the most popular kids in the school, but if there had been a colour spectrum of popularity, he'd surely be in the grey area. No one really _likes_ him. Almost everyone says he's got a stick up his ass, and the kid's always bouncing around doing shit. Yuta remembers when he'd transferred here a year ago, he'd been appalled at the number of schticks the guy kept going. Member of the editorial board. Debate Club President. Emcee of school programmes. School representative in those prudish city school circle competitions. Good enough in academics to be one of the top 5. And you'd expect someone who kept up so many things would be more respected, popular, well-liked. But the general consensus when it came to Doyoung was that the dude was an ass-licker, that he was trying too hard, that he was dumb as fuck, and only got away with shit because he managed to keep the teachers on his side. 

Yuta had never been concerned enough to get to the bottom of this–this mass aversion to Kim Doyoung and why he wasn't a part of any of the cliques and why everyone called him a walking dick. They'd never spoken, Yuta was a science kid and Doyoung a humanities one, and although they did share a class or two, Doyoung preferred to sit in one of the front benches and engage in 1-on-1 conversations with the teachers, and Yuta was too stoned to care, anyway. High school has always been cruel to people, more than anyone would like to admit, maybe it's not as dramatic as what they show on Euphoria or 13 Reasons Why, but people do walk away with a lot of scars that haunt them quite enough for them to find themselves in a therapist's office recollecting about things they'd thought didn't even matter in the first place. Yuta had never really been big on interacting with people, he was okay as long as he had one person to talk to and he'd found that in Jaehyun, the only other stoner kid, and that had been enough. Yuta didn't have a complex for drawing attention either, he'd always liked blending in. It gave him a lot of opportunities to get away with shit he wouldn't have been able to, if he were, well, Doyoung. But he had noticed why people were so particular about Doyoung being a prick―the guy was a pick-me, in a way, always running behind teachers, turning in assignments on time and trying so fucking hard to be the golden child. Yuta had seen that, but then again, Doyoung was his own person, he could do whatever he liked with his life as long as he didn't butt into other people's routines, and since that had never happened, Yuta had never had a conversation with him either. 

He is feeling bad about Doyoung, though. Being outed fucking sucks. Yuta would know. Three years ago his own sister had walked in on him kissing a guy from his class and she'd proceeded to tell his mom and dad. He would have been shipped off to a conversion camp, if he hadn't been quick enough to tell Taeil about his predicament. The latter had taken him to one of those charity organisations which fund gay kids who have been thrown out of their homes by their asshole parents, and Yuta knows he'd lucked out. The charity covers his education and a few other expenses, and he works at the convenience store and Taeil lets him sleep on his couch and it's okay. It's not too bad, and he doesn't miss his straight out of traumatising gay movie parents (hah, good pun) ,and he is doing pretty okay. But being outed fucking sucks, because if his sister hadn't done it three years ago, he'd still have a bed to sleep in and he probably wouldn't be stoned in his classes. He wouldn't have to ruin Taeil's couch and things would have been way different. Yuta doesn't know if things would be better but he would have a supposedly normal childhood with the staple amount of trauma bigoted parents inflict on their kids. And Yuta feels bad for Doyoung, because the guy's going through the same shit, people talking about his sexuality like it isn't something personal, like they didn't just take away years of efforts in keeping something secret, and he knows he shouldn't be worried about the guy anyway, but somehow, this hits on a personal level. He knows why, he just isn't used to having flashbacks to his less than pretty past when he's at school.

Perhaps things wouldn't have been this intense for Doyoung if Lee Taeyong's name wasn't involved this. For someone as disliked as Doyoung, him getting outed would perhaps have been a chainsaw to his head, but the current situation is probably a chainsaw dipped in acid and covered in glass repeatedly macing his skull. Perhaps, if Lee Taeyong's name hadn't been involved in this, Yuta thinks, then Doyoung would have made it out of this with ugly stares and name calling and statutory homophobia. But Lee Taeyong's involvement makes it a thousand times worse, and now everybody's talking about it.

Lee Taeyong, Yuta thinks, has the personality of a wet sock. When Yuta had first showed up here, he had been amazed at how popular the dude was. Taeyong isn't a jock per se, and neither is he a nerd, but this weird concoction of the two. The dude has fucking amazing grades, and always is the top of his class, and he's one of the sprinters on the sports team. The guy speaks in fratboy code even though he's in high school and he sits in the back of the class with his group of friends, etching out humongous boobs and dicks on the desks. And yet, he manages to be on the good side of everyone. The teachers adore him, even more than they adore Doyoung, and the students look at him with a certain degree of awe and a huge dose of admiration, and everyone's always cheering on him like he's the last man standing on earth. He is, in a way, an anti-Doyoung, because no matter how hard Doyoung tries, all he gets is a pat on the back and badly repressed snickers and when Lee Taeyong does the same thing, even if he puts on a low-key mediocre performance, there's applause. If Yuta had not known better, he'd have thought that Taeyong is an enigma, collecting praise with a personality as bland as unseasoned chicken and making degrading jokes about the very girls who crush on him. But the guy's insanely rich, and he is built like a supermodel, and Yuta maybe stoned half the time, but he isn't blind, so he gets it. 

What had been surprising, though, was Taeyong's friendship with Doyoung. It was unlikely, at best, and downright weird, at worst. They'd hang out together, and sit at lunch together, and they'd even walk home together, at times. Doyoung and Taeyong, resident try-hard and golden boy, had apparently grown up together since they were in primary school, scooping up sand and stuffing it into their mouths. Whenever Taeyong wasn't hanging out with his fratboy squad, he was probably hanging around Doyoung, and Yuta had overheard people say shit like Doyoung supposedly clung to Taeyong like a leech, and that Taeyong had said that he wanted to get rid of him, that Doyoung probably had some leverage on Taeyong that he decided to stick with someone like the former of all people, that Taeyong probably hated Doyoung but he hung out with Doyoung out of pity because of some incomprehensible reason. Yuta had never been curious enough to find out the source of the rumors, but he remembers feeling sorry for Doyoung. 

And today, Jaehyun tells Yuta that apparently, Kim Doyoung had told Ten, his only other friend, that he was gay, and in love with Lee Taeyong. 

And when Yuta asks Jaehyun how everyone knows this, the latter shrugs, and responds with "Ten's got a big mouth, you seriously have to be dumb to tell him your secret of all people." 

Yuta stuffs another pot brownie from Jaehyun's lunchbox into his mouth, and tells himself that he shouldn't worry about Kim Doyoung, a guy he barely knows, so much. Besides, it's Kim Doyoung, he knows his way around shit, he would probably figure a way out.

****

Doyoung doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't fucking know what to do. 

This is his third day when he's found himself in the last stall of the toilet and he feels like puking his guts out and he feels sleepy. There's nothing he can do. The walls feel like they're closing in on him, and he sits on the toilet seat and tries to count to ten. He knows it won't work. It never does. When he's not at school while having a panic attack, he waits it out. He waits it out till everything's normal again. But that's not an option here, is it? Staying for too long in the toilet is bound to get him into trouble, and he doesn't want to risk going to the infirmary if they found out that he's sick. He'd seen the nurse throwing him a dirty look at him this morning, and he doesn't want to risk her wrath. She would probably slip him some pain relief gel anyway. He doesn't know why she's still the nurse, especially after that one time she had seen the new stoner kid, Yuta, come to school with a bleeding forehead and had applied glycerin onto the wound. 10/10 healthcare, for sure.

But now he's counting to ten repeatedly and the incoming panic attack isn't subsiding, it's just getting worse and Doyoung is dangerously close to clawing his eyes out. He wrings his hands and they feel bony and he thinks about his own dumbness, telling Ten of all people, and now everybody knew. 5 years of guarding this secret like it was a damn period piece in an art gallery only to lose grasp on it due to his sheer stupidity. He crackles his knuckles one by one and curses himself. What had he been thinking? Why had he even told Ten, of all people? Why had he even felt the need to tell it to someone? He'd gone so many years without telling anyone, anyone at all. 

And now everyone knows. Soon Taeyong will know too, if he doesn't already. Doyoung cracks his knuckle so hard the sound bounces off the walls. Doyoung hasn't seen him in a while, Taeyong has some sprinting competition and he's gone to the city for that, but he doubts that his fratboy squad haven't called him up and told him about this latest development. Especially considering that it's Doyoung, of all people. 

And when Taeyong knows, then what? 

He can see it, though, what would happen. Taeyong would avoid him, and they'd not talk and grow distant. He has never talked about anything gay with Taeyong, but he knows that Taeyong isn't the biggest cheerleader of the homosexual agenda. He hasn't really said that he's got a problem with dick sucking, but Doyoung's ... Doyoung has heard a few things. Words slipping through the cracks of unrelated conversation, Doyoung had heard it. But he'd not really paid attention, even if it felt like a kick to his balls, telling himself that Taeyong would never have to know, and Doyoung would move on, someday, when Taeyong was gone. Out of sight, out of mind.

But now, now he knew. What would he say? What would he even do? He wonders what he's done to deserve this, though. And it sounds a bit romantic, in a stupid as fuck way, that he doesn't care what the rest say. They've always been mean to him. And they'd get meaner, of course. One of them had already written FAG on his locker in red spray paint. He is amused at the dedication, though. So much effort to make him feel like shit. It would be tough, of course, with them breathing on his neck. But he, he doesn't really care. 

It's always been Taeyong. Taeyong in his sprinter glory, Taeyong with his comprehensive notes that he mugged up before exams, Taeyong with his stupid, stupid taste in movies and amazing as fuck grades that Doyoung could never achieve, Taeyong, with whom he'd sat under a tree and shared lollipops in third grade, Taeyong, with his two dogs and a house with marble staircases, Taeyong, his only friend. It had always been Taeyong.

And now he'd lose that too. Doyoung feels his lunch in his throat and he asks himself what he would do. What would he do if Taeyong would leave him too? What the fuck would he do?

All he ever has had is Taeyong, and he'd lose him too. He imagines Taeyong looking at him with disgust and it's... something. It's not a revelation. He has imagined it before, Taeyong looking at him in disgust, Taeyong looking at him like he's this horrible, horrible monster. And yet it hadn't scared him, before. The thought had been something like a serial killer documentary on Netflix, it scares you, but then you remember that there's little to no chance of whatever's happening on screen, happening to you. But today, it feels tangible. Real. Like he can feel the hands of the nightmare on his skin. It's sickening, it's sickening, it's sickening as fuck.

Something breaks inside him, and he slides down the toilet seat to the floor and the toilet stall is too small and the door opens under the force of his legs.

Huh, hadn't he locked it? He doesn't get to ponder on the question because he's heaving and the vomit is all over him, and thank heavens for the weeks of sleep deprivation, he passes out. Thank god for that.

...

Yuta is humming the lyrics to Sour Breath as he walks into the toilet. He isn't stoned, which happens rarely, but he isn't in the mood for it today. Jaehyun had offered, but he had refused. 

Getting stoned in class wasn't something Yuta had considered doing everyday when he had transferred here, but it had worked out that way. He'd tried pot before, of course, Johnny from the convenience store always had good weed, and he sold it real cheap. 16 wasn't the best age to get high, Taeil had told him, the first time he'd shown up at the latter's apartment blinking owlishly, but Yuta had looked at him and said something along the lines of not every 16 year old is thrown out of his home and that had shut Taeil up. And then Yuta had started getting stoned in class with Jaehyun, and it hadn't been too bad. The teachers dismissed him as the stoner kid who can't be brought on the supposed right track, and Yuta managed to keep other people away, and he caught up on whatever they taught in class when he went back to Taeil's place. Contrary to public opinion, Yuta's not exactly dumb, so he studies enough to get by, enough for the charity to keep funding him. Getting stoned kept his social anxiety to the minimum, kept him invisible, kept him numb from all the triggers, and besides, it was fun. He already had close to zero control on his life, having fun while he watched things burn was pretty cool. Model Student Nakamoto Yuta had never really existed in the first place.

And today, he's not stoned and he's walking into the boys toilet humming the lyrics to Sour Breath by Julien Baker. The entire album makes him cry, but this song is so fucking metal is tugs at his heartstrings and makes knots out of them in his chest. He's humming the last few lines when he sees the two legs.

Two legs. Stretching out of the last stall in an awkward angle. Almost like a gangly monster's severed limbs. And Yuta almost stifles a laugh because who the fuck sleeps in a toilet stall? 

He's seen a lot of shit go down [pun intended], in the boys toilet but he hasn't seen whatever this is. And he walks to the stall to find who has assumed that the grimy pee stained floor is a good place to sleep on, and then he sees him.

He sees him. Kim Doyoung. Sprawled out on the floor. There's puke all over his chest and it's dribbling down his chin and it's all over him. His hair is mussed and covers half of his face, and his shirt under the vomit is unbuttoned. And Yuta can make out that the other's eyes are closed. 

Doyoung's propped up against the commode, and the stink of the vomit makes Yuta feel queasy as fuck, but he can't stop looking at the boy. He's never seen proper, perfect, Kim Doyoung like this. Kim Doyoung shows up to school in starched shirts and his hair is always in place.You need to be perfect when you're trying to impress everybody. When you're trying to remain on the good side of the teachers. And now he's in a toilet stall, passed out, smelling like sandwiches and bile. Kim Doyoung is a fucking wreck, and Yuta realises that he needs to do something to wake him.

He gets some water from the sink and tries to sprinkle it all over Doyoung's face without perpetually drowning him. For a hot minute or two, Doyoung doesn't move, and Yuta feels a brief panic. What if the guy's dead? Yuta hasn't checked his pulse yet, which he admits he should have done before. His train of thought gets cut off when he sees Doyoung stirring a little, and he quickly gets more water to sprinkle on the latter's face.

Doyoung slowly opens his eyes, groaning, and Yuta throws a bit more water on his face.

"It's fine, I'm up, I'm up, " Doyoung says, and his voice is hoarse. 

"Man, I really thought you were dead there for a second," Yuta says, and Doyoung turns his face towards him and blinks owlishly. There's an awkward silence that follows, with Doyoung staring at Yuta like the latter is a blue little alien, and Yuta feels like he needs to ease the tension, he needs to say something, he needs to break this weird trance in which Doyoung is looking at him, which is pretty much creeping him out. 

"What's the time?", Doyoung asks, all of a sudden, and Yuta is surprised. It is a weird question to ask, for someone who has vomit all over his chest and is lying on a toilet floor. Yuta notices that the other is not wearing a watch, which, again, is weird. Doyoung is a high schooler, most high schoolers have watches. 

"It's 15 minutes to dismissal," he says.

Doyoung's eyes widen and he tries to get up all of a sudden and Yuta's bewildered because what the fuck is the guy and he tries to hold Doyoung down and says, "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I have been... I have been here for the last 4 hours, I need to get back to class, man I'll get into trouble for skipping and then they'll send me to detention and that would mean, that would mean, that would mean," and Doyoung is rambling by now, and Yuta thinks, _this guy is absolutely cuckoo or the puking got to his brain_ , as he tries to make Doyoung sit still for a second.

"Calm down goody two shoes, you're covered in puke, I promise no one will appreciate your stinky ass in class."

It finally seems to dawn on Doyoung, now, about his current predicament and Yuta watches him close his eyes and let out a sigh.

"Fuuuuck," he says.

[Fuuuuck, indeed, Yuta thinks. ]

"Dude, Yuta, can you do me a favor?"

"If you're gonna ask me to help you clean the puke I'll say no."

And that gets a laugh out of Doyoung, who's talking to Yuta with his eyes closed, leaning against the commode, and he says, "Relax, I'm not gonna ask you to play nurse to me. Can you," and he sighs a little, and Yuta can hear the exhaustion in his voice, "Can you get me my bag? You know where I sit."

"Dude, you're sick and tired, and you want your bag?"

Doyoung probably sees his bewilderment, because he continues, "Just get me the bag. I've got my work uniform there."

"Alright. Yeah. Gotcha."

"Why do you seem so surprised?"

"Just you, working–it's odd that's what it is," Yuta says, and he sees Doyoung's face break into a small tired smile. 

"Yeah, I get that a lot. I work at the ice cream shop downtown."

And now it's Yuta's turn to be surprised, because he often shows up at the ice cream store, and he's never seen Doyoung, and when he says that, Doyoung laughs.

"It's because I don't sit at the counter. There's two of us working there, actually. Sicheng sits at the counter. And I keep the shop clean and keep the accounts, and sometimes make the sundaes when couples show up for dates."

"So counter guy just sits there?"

"He sells the ice cream, and prepares the orders. And you know, Sicheng is pretty. A lot of people have crushes on him. He draws in many customers."

"Ah."

Yuta looks at Doyoung, and the other is staring back at him expectantly now, and Yuta remembers. Oh shoot, his bag. He must have said it loud, because he hears Doyoung snicker, and say, "Yeah, my bag."

Yuta can feel his cheeks burn, and he rushes out of the toilet to bring Kim Doyoung, vomit prince, his bag.

...

Nakamoto Yuta leans against the wall, eyes closed, as Doyoung changes into his work uniform. 

Doyoung has washed his face and cleaned the vomit off his chest, and put his dirty clothes into a small polythene bag that he carries for emergency situations, like this one. 

He wonders why Yuta's hanging around, though. He isn't stoned, for once. But there's no reason for him to be hanging around Doyoung. And he isn't talking either, so he surely isn't here to have a chat. Maybe he just likes the ambience of the grimy toilet. Must be something like that. Or maybe he had come to roll a joint and now he's stuck because Doyoung is puke personified.

He is about to ask Yuta why he's hanging around when he hears the latter hum something under his breath.

"Is that Sour Breath?"

And Doyoung sees Yuta look at him with widened eyes.

"You listen to Julien Baker?"

Doyoung lets out a chuckle, "Listen to her? Dude I'm obsessed with the Boygenius squad. God knows how many Phoebe-Julien-Lucy induced crying sessions I have had."

"Dude, same."

And Doyoung is excited, because he's never met another Boygenius squad enthusiast at school. But then he remembers that half the class doesn't talk to him, and Taeyong has terrible music taste, so again, it's not too surprising.

"Turn Out The Lights made me ugly cry so much."

"Seriously. Like Televangelist? "My heart is gonna eat itself. Fucking gorgeous stuff."

"Exactly. Fuck. And Happy To Be Here? Dude. 'Well I heard there's a fix for everything, then why not me?', that line straight up impaled my heart."

And now they're singing Sour Breath in the boys toilet, and it's almost funny, because Doyoung's breath is fucking sour now, and the lyrics are so fucking sad, but they're smiling through it, who'd have thought Doyoung would smile, of all things, while singing Sour Breath? Who'd have thought?

...  
__

_Watch the poison leak from your pores  
Think all the liquor's gonna keep you warm  
Burn everything down to prove you could  
Leave me inside in a body made of wood  
In a body made of wood _

Yuta's singing is a teensy bit off key, and there's a slight hoarseness to his voice, but Doyoung likes it. The guy has a sweet voice, barring the smoke induced roughness, and it would sound pretentious, but Nakamoto Yuta sounds like he feels the stabs Doyoung himself feels in his gut everytime he listens to Julien. He likes this, this tiny bubble, this singing of one of the saddest songs on his 3 am playlist, it's almost as if all the bullcrap that has managed to crash land onto his already miserable life doesn't exist. 

It's nice to have a friend, he thinks. 

_"Oh, the harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink_

Doyoung's got a lump in his throat, and he sees that Yuta's got his eyes closed to, and their voices are bouncing off the tiles. It's weird how no one showed up to pee for the last hour. Well good for them. He wonders if this is somewhat like a one hit wonder kind of meeting–maybe tomorrow they'd go back to being resident try-hard and stoner recluse kid. It wouldn't be surprising, and Doyoung is making this unnecessarily dramatic, but sometimes its nice to have a friend.

_  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink  
The harder I swim, the faster I sink"_

The song's over and Yuta is looking at him. 

Taeyong would be back, tomorrow. Doyoung thinks it's fitting to remember that he never learned swimming anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Please listen to Julien Baker, her albums are literally goldmines.
> 
> Boygenius features Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. A Very Gay and a Very Sad band. 
> 
> Let me get my emo ass outta here, I'll update soon [I hope]


End file.
